Pages

28 février 2014

POINT DE VUE : The “Soviet Union 2.0″, the Crimea Peninsula, Ukraine and the EU

Hans-Jürgen ZAHORKA

Whatever
the news are and will be, whoever will have been the masked, uniformed people,
the whole world looks and above all will look to the Crimea Peninsula and the
South of Ukraine in the next days. It all depends how Putin will act or react –
and it cannot be believed that what happened the last two days was a matter of
some local commanders of the Russian Black Sea troops while he, Putin, did not
know anything. He still tries to play the “good cop”, but nobody believes him
anymore. Furthermore he might orchestrate a bigger operation than in Georgia,
with Abkhasia and South Ossetia, in 2008, with revealing pictures repeating
themselves in Crimea.

Since 1954, Crimea has been submitted by then Soviet Union to the Ukrainian
authorities. In May 1992, the region was a punching ball between Russia, the
Crimean parliament and Ukraine, with the result that it got a high degree of
self-government. It became a kind of decentralised part of Ukraine, with an own
Constitution and a relatively high degree of self-government. While Russian
President Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Kravchuk managed to divide the Soviet
Black Sea fleet, Crimean Communists wanted an even more distinguished status of
the Peninsula, which had at this time around 2 million of citizens (which
decrease from year to year). The Crimean Parliament, however, anchored a clear
phrase in the Constitution that the Peninsula was part of Ukraine.

Since this time there were numerous attempts in
Crimea to be integrated into Russia and to leave Ukraine. In 2008, Russian
passports have been given to Crimea residents, to create citizens to be
protected then by Russia – at the same time when Russia did exactly the same in
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which were until then provinces of Georgia. Unlike
Georgia’s Saakashvili however, the new Ukrainian government will not be torn
into a provocation by Russia.

It was evident that “something” had to happen
in the Crimea Peninsula, in which southern part the Russian Black Sea fleet is
based. Nothing against this fleet (and most Ukrainians could also live with
this), but the Russian action seems to be a clear act of aggression, as another
country has partly been occupied now, as Russia has made a no-flight zone over
the Crimea, and as light tanks and an army staff of at least 2.000 has been
sent to the peninsula to “protect” (or take) local strategic institutions. Sure,
the Crimea has been populated always by a majority of ethnic Russians, and
there are ten thousands of Crimea Tatars who came only back to their former
residences on Crimea recently, after they have been sent by Stalin in the
mid-1940s to Siberia or Central Asia. This population group, of Muslim belief,
is committed to live in Ukraine.

Since some street riots, without the loss of
lives (except one casualty due to a heart attack), since 26.2.2014 in
Simferopol, the Russian president Putin has ordered more than 150.000 Russian
troops near the Ukrainian border on alert. Evidently, Russian forces have
occupied parts of the Ukraine, which is, to put it mildly, illegal. This is
indicated also by flights of helicopter gunships over the Crimea, and the
persons which were partly masked and without uniform signs have been Russians,
according to local population. Maybe the whole coup is what Moscow wants – but
it will have to calculate now with heavy political and probably also economic
replies:

1. The Ukraine could cancel the Black Sea
Agreement regarding the navy bases in Ukraine. Maybe there is no effect upon
this, but the claims could be pursued by international tribunals, and this
would contribute to a growing isolation of Russia, which has – in 2014, and not
any more in Soviet Union or before, when these things have been undertaken
frequently – revived unilaterally a kind of Cold War. Another of course than
the one which was held on an ideological basis, but a Cold War not of the old
Soviet Union, but of “Soviet Union 2.0″, which evidently is Putin’s Russia
today.

2. There
will be a heavy consequence for any country where the possible accession to
Putin’s invention, the Eurasian Union and even the Eurasian Customs Union, is
considered. The hit to Crimea will cost a lot of credibility, and from now on,
the Kremlin is on the defensive regarding this project.

3. It will
drive Ukraine much faster into the European Union than foreseen, and it will
also set free thoughts about integrating Ukraine into NATO – and this above all
from Ukraine.

4. It may
bring a further drop of economic relations between the EU and Russia, and
therefore contribute to an ever more stagnating economy of Russia – which is
one of the biggest problems of the future. Putin cannot, today, calculate any more
with the capacity to suffer of the Russian People.

5. In this
context, I want to advocate the abolition of visas between the EU and Russia.
Thus, Russians can see how Europeans live, how they think, how the EU and the
Member States’ governments and parliaments work. This, and millions of personal
contacts and talks will have a long-term effect on Russia.

6. There
will be a middle-term effect of free speech in the Crimea. Until now, the
Peninsula has been led by Russian propaganda which is considerably different to
the facts.

7. We are
not anymore in talks between Yeltsin and Helmut Kohl – these times are over.
There is an ex-KGB Boss now running the Kremlin, and he clearly wants to create
somehow a superpower glory like in Soviet times. This is possibly followed with
the same means as in Soviet times, namely with lies, like what Russia’s Foreign
Minister Lavrov said to John Kerry two times during a phone talk these days:
that the territorial integrity of Ukraine will not be touched. This means
clearly, that there cannot be any more trust and reliance in Russian
declarations.

It is evident that the sagas of “fascists” etc. who “took now power in Kiev”
are nonsense; These are people who wanted to get rid of Yanukovich who marched
his own “Berkut” police units and his secret service against protesters, who
did on the long term not accept Yanukovich’s way of retiring from the EU, of
accruing personal fortunes and of having a rude leadership, with big deficits
in the rule of law and heavy corruption. It has been no miracle that
exaggerated expressions of nationalism could grow in this climate, but the
Ukrainians are, like all other Europeans who do appreciate that they can live
under European values, no fascists. The yet existing democratic deficits can be
wiped out easily and in a fast way – this was shown e.g. by the Maidan Council
etc.

8. There
will be on the next EU summit on 20/21.3.2014 the new government of Ukraine
coming to the EU heads of state and government to sign the Association
Agreement with the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area. This will induce, if
not done already, payments of the EU, but wisely bound to reforms and to
conditionality. Of course, this may bring problems for the Ukraine and its
citizens as well, but only temporarily. The more open the UA government and
parliament says this to its own people, the better. After all, this is a
heritage from a Person who has cheated his people for millions and billions. It
can be looked on the money laundering procedures not only in Switzerland, Liechtenstein,
Austria, but probably also in other countries.

9. And last
but not least, what Putin has done, arranged or accepted in Crimea must have a
political, soft-power adequate reply. The EU is and will remain a soft power,
in contrast to the Soviet Union 2.0 which is at present Russia – and where
people who took part in anti-Putin protests 2 years ago were thrown up to 4 1/2
years to labour camp prison only one day after the Sotchi Winter Olympics
ended. The power of weakness, or soft power, has always a longer breath than
the weakness of power, or hard power. But above all, the EU has to follow now
an articulate policy towards this kind of authoritarian, aggressive rulers in
its environment. Doing nothing is no solution for the EU, and Putin and the UA
government would be well advised, to settle the question of the Black Sea fleet
– an Instrument of only regional and not of strategic importance – in a
Guantanamo way, maybe with the rental agreement of a base on eternity”.